The Wonderfully Fantastic and Sometimes Curious Life of John Patrick Rausch

“Priests; say your mass like it’s your first one, last one, only one. People, live your days like it’s your first one, last one, only one.” - Canon Dumain       Up until this week, the most interaction I’ve had with the government on any level was voting in a few elections, going to a school board meeting, and being in the back of a car that got pulled over because my brother was speeding. Now I’ve taken a bus halfway across the country to rally for the pro-life cause in Washington DC.        All this came about when my rambunctious colleague Devin texted me and asked if I wanted to go. Immediately I said yes, then learned I would have to skip the first week of classes for senior year’s last semester and doubled down! As I prepared to go, I was advised by some friends that it might be wise to notify my professors of my absence. I sent out the emails and inside of 5 minutes got the following response from my aging and oddly energetic English professor.       “That sounds wicked cool, Jo

     …I was suddenly awoken to the sharp, piercing, yet not entirely unflirtatious feeling of cold air penetrating my sleeping bag. “Huh, that's odd, I don’t recall unzipping my vent” thought my groggy and still half asleep brain. “I better check on that” thought my quickly much more awake brain. In short order, I ascertained that my sleeping bag zipper had broken and the first thought that occurred to me was “this is hardcore, awesome.”      It all started in the Summer of 2021 while racing the Tour of America’s Dairylands stage race in Milwaukee. Along this particular adventure whose story is to be saved for another date, I had met a girl named Anna in the parking lot of the local catholic college students building. We quickly became friends and kept in loose contact through my last fall semester in college. In one of the letters we exchanged, Anna offhandedly mentioned that I should come out to Denver and that she would show me around the area and introduce me to the other fun p

     I think that I would very much like to start a Blog. This endeavor is not for the edification of readers or the satisfaction of self, but rather as a means to document my occasional thoughts, feelings, stories, and experiences that I believe are worth remembering. Hopefully, there will be no one with a grammatically watchful eye scrutinizing these words. It is my sincere desire that strangers and close friends alike read this and that my words may serve to help them in some capacity or the very least be a written account of my life. Cheers to the stories to come, let there be an abundance of tall tales and zero proof reading.  The Odyssey and I